


Beneath Our Distant Sky (I Heard Your Voice)

by Verasteine



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Character Study, Domestic Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-08
Updated: 2011-06-08
Packaged: 2017-10-21 06:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verasteine/pseuds/Verasteine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Because I had this incident once, in LA."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beneath Our Distant Sky (I Heard Your Voice)

**Author's Note:**

> Please note this story deals with domestic violence.
> 
> Massive thank you to [](http://hermette.livejournal.com/profile)[**hermette**](http://hermette.livejournal.com/) , who graciously agreed to beta this when I asked out of the blue. This show seems to have bitten me, but I still didn't expect this to be the first place it would take me. Oh, well. Enjoy!

After it's over, she lights a cigarette.

Her hands are shaking, but she wills them to stillness, long enough to make the lighter catch and get the cigarette lit. When she takes a long drag of nicotine into her lungs, her split lip burns as it touches the paper.

She hisses, but continues anyway.

She can hear voices on the landing outside, hesitant and intimidated. _Cowards_ , she thinks darkly, and then she hears the boots on the stairs.

The tread is heavy, authoritarian, the way her father walks up stairs. She knows even without looking up, even without seeing the streaks of blue flash behind the curtains. There's a banging on the door, the hinges squeak as it opens, and then the same tread comes up to the living room.

The cop has a gun in one hand, a flashlight in the other. Mary looks at him from where she's sitting on the floor, tries to squint past the bright maglight to see a face.

He slides the light up and down her body, and she tries to stare back at him even though the flashlight's glare is beginning to hurt her eyes. He reaches for his radio and reports something unintelligible to someone on the other side.

Cops. They always speak in code. She really, really hates cops.

He looks around, finds the light switch by the door and clicks it on, switches off his flashlight. Then he crouches down by her side. "What's your name?"

She blinks at him, finally manages to make her voice work. "Mary Ann McGarrett."

"Okay, Mary Ann. Can you tell me what happened?"

She nods. She was never not planning on telling anyone. The moment he first struck her, she'd yelled at him about calling the police.

The cigarette is burnt down nearly to the filter, and she stubs it out on the floor without thinking about the stain on the tiles. She carefully uncurls from where she was and stands.

The room whirls, someone grabs her elbow, and then she nearly pitches forward before she can steady herself. "Whoa."

"Easy there," says the officer, and Mary glares at him from under her bangs.

"Yeah," she says, and takes the two steps to the sofa.

As she sits down, she sees the smear of blood on the corner, where her head impacted with the wood as Tommy struck her the third time. Or maybe it was the fourth. She lost count somewhere. It's almost funny, almost predictable enough to make her laugh, and she sort of hiccoughs as she fumbles for her second cigarette, lights it with hands that are no more steady than they were two minutes ago.

"I'll get you a glass of water," the cop says, and she wordlessly points to the small kitchen. When he comes back with the cup she drinks a mouthful, and when she swallows everything hurts, and she nearly spits it up again.

"Fuck!" She sets the glass down with trembling hands. She's leaving bloody smears on the rim, and wrinkles her nose in disgust. When she brings a hand to her mouth, her lip feels twice its normal size and alien in her face, and that's even more disgusting.

The second cigarette stings even more than the first, the smoke making her eyes water. She ignores it.

"His name," she says, "is Tommy DeLancio."

The officer pulls out a notebook from his breast pocket, and Mary watches his fingers, too big, fumbling with the button. His nails are short and blunt, practical, with grease caught under the rim.

In everything, he reminds her of the men of her family, of the way they hold themselves. She wants to yell at him, but can't find the strength, knows she has to get through this now, because she is refusing to be that woman. Refusing.

"What else can you tell me about him?"

His hand is poised above the book and he writes as she talks, quick scratches of shortened words and quick numbers, Tommy's name written out but then only, _MH511/DH, Tatt._

She has always been able to read upside down, and Steve forced her to teach him way back when they were both in high school. She thought he'd use it to cheat in tests or something, but no, he just thought it was useful.

Steve has always been a little crazy.

"What happened here tonight?"

She looks away, around the room that is at least partially trashed, _and wouldn't it be her freaking luck if she got evicted over this_ , and at the lights still streaking methodically past her window.

"He hit me," she says. "So I hit him back, and he didn't like that."

The cop nods, and Mary takes another drag of her cigarette and looks him in the eye for the next part. "Then he punched me."

She must have blacked out, because she'd come to a while later, to Tommy smacking her in the face and dragging her into the living room by her hair. She refuses to let her voice crack as she talks, describing it all, down to grabbing the ashtray and hitting Tommy in the head with it.

"He left after that."

She coughs and takes another sip of water, the liquid stinging the cut on her lip again. That's going to get old really quickly.

The officer is done scribbling. "You should go to hospital."

 _And who's going to pay for that?_ Mary shakes her head. "I'll go down the clinic in the morning."

He looks at her with narrowed eyes, but isn't so green that he argues with her. "Is there a friend you can call?"

As if on cue, the phone rings, and Mary starts, more than she'd thought she would. She reaches for it, looks at the caller ID.

"Is it DeLancio?" the officer asks.

Mary shakes her head. "No." For a moment, she smiles without thinking about it, feels a fresh drop of blood well up on her lip. "It's my brother."

She stubs out the cigarette on the table; the ashtray is in two pieces by the door, with Tommy's blood on it. She picks up, pressing talk with her thumb. "Hey, bro."

Her voice comes out remarkably steady. That's good.

"Hey, Mary Ann." Steve sounds tired, really tired, and she looks at the clock, realizing that it's late, later than appropriate. "Did I wake you?"

She tries for a laugh. "On a Friday night? Of course not."

"Everything okay with you? How've you been?"

Steve's checking back in, probably after having been away. She doesn't know enough about his life to guess, but even if she did know she probably couldn't. Her brother, the ninja. "Yeah, I'm cool," she replies. "You? Been busy saving the world?"

"Something like that." His voice is just a little off, like the joke hit too close to home, and she curls her hand around the receiver in an effort to keep him closer.

"You okay, Steve?"

There's a beat of nothing but quiet, then he sighs. "Yeah."

For a moment, she only listens to the silence of what is probably an international connection.

"Mary?"

"Yeah?"

"Everything okay?"

She takes a deep breath, hears how shaky it is, takes a sip of water. "I'm peachy, Steve. You know me. Just chilling on a Friday night."

"Okay." If they were in the same room, he might have frowned at her. She doesn't know any more. Her eyes slide to the photograph in the corner, the only photograph in her place, the family all together.

For a moment, something like hope curls in her stomach, and she says, "You coming to somewhere near LA sometime soon, Steve?"

She doesn't know if the regret she hears in his voice is real. "Probably not, Mary." And then, belatedly, "Sorry."

"Yeah." The old bitterness is back, everything that she's trying to ignore when she's not on the phone with him or their father. "Of course."

"Mary--"

"Forget it." She's angry now, the pain in her head making her tetchy. "I'll talk to you sometime, yeah?"

"Yeah. But, Mary, hey, wait--"

"Love you, Steve," she singsongs, too sweetly. "Bye."

She stabs a finger at the end button, and the tears start pricking behind her eyes. She turns away to wipe them off, reaches for the Marlboro packet on the table, and lights her third cigarette of the night. Then she turns back to the police officer still sitting on her couch.

"Where were we?"

\--  
 _finis._


End file.
